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On Tour, Conan O’Brien Gets Some Super Assistance

Conan O’Brien got a little help from an old friend in a couple of boisterous stage shows on his Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television Tour in Los Angeles on Saturday and Sunday nights:

Jim Carrey showed up as Superman on Saturday, and as a character from the new hit movie “Kick-Ass” on Sunday. (On Sunday, Mr. O’Brien wore Superman’s cape.)

Not the real Superman, but one – in “a funny red sheet” — described in the Five for Fighting song “Superman (It’s Not Easy).”

Mr. Carrey was the biggest of several celebrity guests (others included Jon Hamm of “Mad Men” and Aziz Ansari of “Parks and Recreation”) at Mr. O’Brien’s first appearance back in this town since January, when he exited his “Tonight Show” on NBC amid much furor.

And according to several of the show’s staff members, it was Mr. Carrey himself — a longtime “friend of the show” — who suggested the musical number he shared onstage with Mr. O’Brien.

Only Mr. Carrey was wearing the costume-shop-quality Superman outfit, but Mr. O’Brien belted out the lyrics as well, which Mr. Carrey may have chosen for their relevance to Mr. O’Brien’s experience with NBC:

“It may sound absurd, but don’t be naïve/Even heroes have the right to bleed.”

And:

“I’m only a man in a funny red sheet/I’m only a man looking for a dream.”

Of course, both men sang with appropriate faux grandiosity.

Mr. Carrey – a frequent guest — had done a memorable turn on Mr. O’Brien’s old “Late Night” show on NBC, in which he portrayed Mr. O’Brien abusing his staff as a star-struck monster.

One staff member said that the two men had only rehearsed the number one time Saturday afternoon before performing it for an audience of about 6,000 at the Gibson Amphitheater on the Universal lot— about 400 yards, Mr. O’Brien noted, from the studio NBC had built him for the “Tonight Show.”